Lorum Ipsum
by nico78
Summary: Peter Bishop, pity party of one: no guests allowed. Fills in the blanks from TMFTOS and Northwest Passage and takes a hard left after that. Chapter 3 UP!
1. Chapter 1

_No inFringement intended, just filling in the blanks. Probably won't take the same road as Northwest Passage, but you can get there from here._

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* * *

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"I want a team on the other side of that bridge, NOW!" Broyles barked as the railroad bridge warped and shimmered. A shock wave almost knocked them all flat against the ground. He was done being a bystander. He just watched two of his men possibly disintegrated into nothing and be damned if he was going to stand here and watch.

Walter broke away from Olivia's weak grip on his jacket and loped as fast as he could towards the bridge and Peter.

"Walter!"

She easily caught up to him.

"It might not be safe! Stay back," she yelled as she ran past him headlong into the thick of it. The FBI agent and Peter had both disappeared and Walter's urgent warning from before was screaming in her brain-- _The waves will tear a man apart._

She blinked back hot tears that were pricking at her eyes. The wind dried them out quickly as she ran.

She sprinted towards the black SUV. Coming from behind she could see both sides, equipment scattered about, but saw no one. Across the way, a white SUV screeched and drove off. She pulled her gun again and risked a look, but she didn't have a clear shot. But really all she could think about was Peter. She came around to the front of the vehicle and there he was. Her heart, seconds away from being crushed and scattered to the wind, skipped ten beats and picked up the rhythm again.

He was slumped against the bumper. Deathly still. She bent down, feeling for a pulse. It was there, but fast. There was blood coming from his ear and that was very worrisome to her. She touched his hand.

Walter came up beside her.

"Oh, thank God," he muttered. He knelt down and tried to wake him. "Peter! Son, wake up," he slapped his cheeks gently trying to rouse him, pulled on his jacket.

"Walter, stop," she pulled at his restless hands to still them. She didn't want to move him for fear of hurting him more. The shock wave must have knocked him out, maybe he'd hit his head. She hoped that was all. She didn't want to think about skull fractures or broken bones or anything else. She went to touch him again, but pulled back.

"We need a paramedic right now!" she stood up and yelled at Broyles who was coming up behind the car and only a few feet away.

"Already on it," he barked back. Into his radio he said, "We need paramedics, agent down..." He walked to the edge of the bridge to give their location and tried to see anything on the other side.

"What about the other person that was on this bridge?" Olivia looked at Broyles. "And the white SUV, we need to find them, someone came over."

"_Who_ came over?" Broyles asked, a troubled look on his face.

"Somebody was on this bridge, they came over from the other side. And left in a white SUV, in a hurry," she told him. "With Newton."

"Are you sure of that, Dunham?" Broyles questioned her.

"Yes," Olivia answered.

"Yes, she is," Walter concurred. "They were attempting to create a portal to the other side, Agent Broyles. We were attempting to disrupt it. But it appears that they were partially successful," he said worriedly as he brought his attention back to Peter. Peter, who had risked his life, not knowing that he would survive, unlike the FBI agent. Peter, who stayed behind to help him get set-up, who had just called him dad, who had fixed his turntable and made him pies at ungodly hours of the night and took the pus samples from bodies and calmed Olivia when she needed it and when he needed it. But Walter was anything but calm now and neither was Olivia. The only calm one was Peter who was still motionless against the bumper in a very uncomfortable looking position and not responding to either of them. Walter felt his son's neck again for a pulse, careful not to jostle him any further. It still seemed faster than normal.

Broyles watched as his agents pulled up to the other side of the dilapidated bridge.

"Nothing over here, sir," they radioed over to him.

Broyles exhaled loudly. "We are looking for a white SUV..." he walked away to bark at them in private.

Walter pinched the back of his son's hand, pried open his eyelids to check the pupils with the flashlight he carried at all times in his front pocket.

"This is not good, Olivia," he told her as she crouched down again. "No response to painful stimulus. Not good, not good. We can't wait for the paramedics," he said looking up at her worried face.

"Walter, we have to wait, they'll be here soon."

"No! We have to take him ourselves!" he hissed at her, frantic and irrational.

"Walter, just relax," she ran her hand through her hair and spoke in her best authoritative voice because she really didn't have the time or the patience to deal with Walter right now. "We can't move him. They'll be here soon."

And he doesn't say anything more because he knows from her tone of voice that she means business. Stealing the car himself and getting Peter out of there was also certainly out of the question. He had seen her shoot that cop in cold blood and didn't want to get on her bad side any more than he possibly was.

"Agent Dunham," Broyles called out to Olivia. She stood and walked over to her boss who was standing off to the side, out of earshot of Walter. Broyles looked at her, looked through her, before he spoke. "Will you please explain to me what the hell is going on?" he said, deadly serious. "Where is Agent Crawford? Why did he disintegrate into thin air in front of my eyes and Peter Bishop didn't?" He looked at her like he already knew the answer and only needed her confirmation.

Olivia had no time to prepare. She had hid this information from Broyles, too. She knew the whole sordid thing would eventually come out, but she just needed more time. Peter needed more time. Should she lie and say she didn't know? She looked over the side at the water, saw an empty boat sitting below. Thought there might be more casualties than they initially thought. Sirens sounded in the distance, getting closer.

She looked Broyles in the face, "I am still gathering evidence, sir. I cannot tell you for sure at this time."

Broyles' face might have been carved in stone. She bet he played a hell of a game of poker.

"Have you been purposely withholding this knowledge?" he asked.

But Olivia also played a mean game of poker. "Remember sir, you withheld knowledge of a few things from me, too. I'm sure you had your reasons. As do I." She felt like it was a Mexican standoff. The tension so great that at some point, they were both going to go for their guns and only one of them would be left standing.

Broyles was saved by the ambulance pulling up at the foot of the bridge.

He gave her a softer look. "I did have my reasons. I'll talk to you about this in the near future, though."

"Yes, sir," Olivia said. She breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't need Broyles breathing down her back, but he knew she needed time. She was thankful that although Broyles had a gruff exterior, he seemed to always know when she needed something, sometimes even before she knew she needed it.

She waved at the paramedics who were approaching with their black bags and a backboard.

"Over here," she directed them to the edge where Walter crouched over Peter's limp form. The anguish in Walter's eyes was terrible and she knew they must match her own.

* * *

Walter got to ride with Peter in the ambulance after he promised Olivia he would stay out of the way. She was so much more demanding than Peter sometimes. He didn't even notice and wasn't even the least bit excited when they turned on the sirens and sped away to the nearest hospital. He was too busy trying to tell them to put that there and this here and don't use that arm for the I.V. And no, he doesn't have a history of seizures and no, he's not allergic to penicillin, and is he his next of kin?

The question hung in the air for a moment.

_Next of kin... _Walter could not get any more words past the big lump in his throat, so he just nodded. The paramedic seemed satisfied enough though and scribbled something down on his clipboard. Walter envied this man's innocence. Oblivious to the tragic technicalities of his words, blind to the world literally ripping apart at the seams around him. That he could go about his job and come home to his family or his dog and have a beer, watch some tv—repeat, repeat, repeat, ad inifinitum--when a handful of them knew what was coming and the consequences were dire. It was an enviable position.

Walter stared at the still lifeless form of his son, his only son— no, not his only son-- but still his son. For twenty-five of his thirty-two years he was his son, which came to 78% of Peter's life and if he rounded up it was practically his whole life if that counted for anything. But then, subtract seventeen years and then probably another year or two where he really wasn't around and the end figure was more like twenty percent. And twenty percent wasn't even a quarter of his life--

Walter stopped that train of thought and just let his mind go blank, sometimes that was easier.

He sat and stared again at Peter, strapped to a back board and neck brace, tubes running this way and that. The medic was writing some more notes, checking the I.V., checking Peter's neural responses.

"Why isn't he waking up?" Walter murmured to himself. He hadn't realized he'd been thinking out loud but the paramedic heard him.

"Trauma has a funny way of manifesting itself," the medic told him, placing a hand on Walter's shoulder. "They'll get a better handle on it at the hospital. He's stable though."

Walter nodded and made sure he rode the rest of the way in silence.

And he didn't get in the way, just like he promised Olivia.

* * *

35 HOURS LATER

Walter walked out of Peter's room, a complete certifiable, babbling mess and went straight to Olivia.

"He knows Olivia, he knows..." he stared into her unbelieving eyes and wrung his hands, shaking, shuddering almost out of control. The complete opposite of how he entered the room a few minutes before. "He wouldn't let me explain. This is not how I wanted it to happen. Not at all. I should have told him, I should have..." his voice became desperate, pleading.

"Calm down, Walter, let me go talk to him." She felt a pit of dread in her stomach. She had known, she had seen the venomous look in his eyes when he'd he first woke up. But she'd thought it was just from the thirty-six hour marathon nap or grogginess or pain killers or anything else but what her gut had told her initially. And she knew her gut was always right.

"He said he wants to be alone, Olivia."

Olivia peered into the window of Peter's room. He was laid back against the pillows and she could tell by the way he was holding himself and the set of his jaw that he was angry. But she was angry, too. Wouldn't he at least allow Walter to explain? How could he presume to know the whole story? Maybe he would allow her to explain things rationally. Her anger at herself bubbled up, too, she should have told him from day one. He should have heard it from her. She turned away then as she realized her deception had now caught up to her. He knew that she too had been hiding things from him. She knew when she first saw the look, but then he smiled and everything seemed okay. But that smile had been just like the one he'd given her in Iraq, fake and plastic, maybe a little warmer, but not by much. She didn't want to think that a year and a half of friendship and trust and whatever else was brewing between them could disappear with a smile. She hoped it wouldn't.

She ran her hands through her hair, she should take Walter home, give Peter some alone time and hope that her worst fears wouldn't come true and he'd be there in the morning.

Olivia gathered her coat and tugged at Walter and he gathered himself up, too. "I'll meet you at the elevator, Walter," she told him and he slipped past the doorway not looking inside at Peter who was like a statue. She stood in the doorway of his room, a gulf, a mile wide and a mile deep, lay between them. He appeared to be sleeping, but she knew him better.

"Peter, I know you're upset. And I know you're awake," she began.

He didn't open his eyes and his face was anything but peaceful. But he was listening, she knew.

"Don't rush to judge your father too harshly. Please, hear him out before you do anything rash, Peter. I'm going to take Walter home and I'll be back in a few hours. It's late, let's get some sleep and we can talk tomorrow."

Peter didn't acknowledge her and Olivia paused briefly before fleeing to the elevator and to the great unknown that was the future of their odd little family unit.

* * *

Peter heard her hesitate and then her footsteps on the floor receded as she walked out. He waited for what he thought was about ten minutes, until he was sure they were gone. He wanted to wait more, had been biting his lip, trying to keep the tears from falling, but now they burned behind his eyes wanting release and they would wait no more. Why was it that everyone around him always ended up betraying him, hurting him, and telling lies? He swiped at his eyes as they spilled over and he hated himself for crying, for being weak, but he couldn't stop, the flood gates were open. He was a grown ass man, he shouldn't be crying over this. But it was everything else, too. His mom, his father, his Olivia--they all had lied to him. He'd been too preoccupied with trying to combat Walter's depression to really notice just when everything had started to go so wrong. Ever since Jacksonville Olivia had been acting strangely. He thought it was her, maybe she'd dredged up painful memories she couldn't talk about yet. Or maybe it was him and their near kiss was too much, too soon. He figured she would talk to him about it when she was ready, he was sure of that. He just wildly underestimated the weight of what she was carrying around with her.

He just laid there, staring at the ceiling tiles trying to count the holes and stop the waterworks from getting any farther out of hand, but he kept dwelling on everything. Peter Bishop, pity party of one: no guests allowed.

Thoughts came barreling at him non-stop. Now he knew why he could never sleep normal hours comfortably and had always been a night owl. He was out of synch. He now knew the real reason why his mother had committed suicide, it was not his fault for moving to Europe and leaving her alone, it was Walter's fault. Walter had even lied about that, too. He knew why he could never sit still in one place for too long, he simply wasn't where he should be and there was nowhere he could run to to fix that. Well, there was one place he could go to, but there was a certain matter of getting there. He was probably experimented on, just like Olivia. He might not remember a good chunk of his childhood but he damn well remembered being hooked up to car batteries.

He had to get out of here. They would come back in the morning and he would be gone. He couldn't look at them right now, couldn't talk to them, he just didn't know what he would do or say and that scared him.

His tears died down after awhile and he wiped them clear with the corner of the sheet. He tried to sit up and groaned, his back was killing him. He had to get these wires off of him, find his clothes, and get as far away from here as humanly possible.

He stood upright without too much trouble and splashed some cold water on his face. There was a fresh set of clothes in a bag in his closet and he pulled them on slowly. Absently he wondered who was the thoughtful one that had brought him a fresh change of clothes, Walter or Olivia. Either answer gutted him, but for many different reasons. So he dragged his aching body out to the nurses' station and plastered his best smile on his face.

"What do I need to sign to get out of this place?"

Peter Bishop, a free man, stood outside Mass General rubbing his hands together against the chilly early morning air and contemplated 'borrowing' a car. He found it funny how old habits just came naturally back to him, like riding a bicycle, like stealing a car, like being on the run. He smiled slightly but only at how sad it all was. He thought he was a tough guy all these years, but come to find out he was just a broken record.

Walking between the red brick buildings, he decided that stealing a car was definitely out. There would be no thrill, so why bother. He'd probably get caught anyways and then he'd really be stuck in Boston. He saw a bus stop on Cambridge Street and briefly considered hopping on one, but after the things he'd seen on buses and subway platforms in the last two years, he probably would never ride public transportation ever again.

He wondered what public transportation looked like on the other side.

He saw a gas station ahead and a red neon ATM sign beckoned him. He nodded at the man behind the counter who was watching something on a small black and white television. He looked around for the cash machine, slipped his card into it and withdrew the maximum possible from his bank account—$500. For a few moments, Peter stared into the eye of the camera staring back at him as he waited for his cash to be spit out. It was a cold feeling to know his every move at that moment was being recorded and analyzed on a server somewhere and if he was really paranoid, ringing a phone somewhere deep in the heart of Massive Dynamic's headquarters. Maybe even Nina Sharp's phone. Or if he was really, really paranoid, ringing a slightly different phone somewhere deep in the slightly different heart of a slightly different Massive Dynamic in an alternate universe far, far away. He grabbed his cash and receipt and decided he was really, really paranoid and needed out of there fast. But first he needed some things.

He looked around and grabbed a bottle of water from a refrigerated case and set it on the counter. He also grabbed a Snickers bar

"Do you have any aspirin or Tylenol?" Peter asked the cashier. "I was in a bad wreck and my head's killing me."

"Just these," the cashier pointed to a box filled with small generic looking pill packets. "I think they're aspirin." He didn't look too sure.

"Well, give me about five of them." He had two prescriptions in his pocket for the good stuff, but he wasn't about to wait around for them to be filled. He looked around some more and spotted what he was looking for.

"Can I get one of those hats?" he pointed to some black knit caps hanging on the back wall.

The cashier took one down and handed it to Peter. It had cutouts for the eyes nose and mouth and he put his fingers through them, wiggled them around. He wondered what kind of knit caps they sold in gas stations in the alternate universe.

He rolled it up and put it on like a normal knit cap. It wasn't a great disguise, but it would keep his head warm anyways. And if he needed to rob a bank or infiltrate a secret government facility, he would be prepared.

Done with his impulse shopping, Peter handed the guy a twenty.

He popped some of the pills that were indeed aspirin and stepped outside into the cold morning air. He swallowed some water and it felt really good going down his parched throat. By some miracle or stroke of good luck, a taxi was driving slowly down the street at that same moment. Peter put out his hand and flagged it down, opened the door and felt the warm inviting heat inside. But then a thought struck him. Yes, this taxi was a little too miraculous.

"Uh, nevermind. I forgot, somebody's picking me up." And he shut the door abruptly. Paranoia was starting to creep in on all fours.

The driver gave him a weird look and drove slowly away.

Peter stood there, unsure of what to do or where to go or how to even get there.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

**Oh, just so you all know, that finale ain't happenin' in THIS universe...**

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* * *

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**OUTSIDE BOSTON**

Peter had been sitting, lost in thought, in the driver's seat of his rental car for almost a half hour. He had just been sitting there, windows open, head back. Listening to the trees rustling in the gentle breeze, the birds singing and squawking, and the distant cars humming along with a purpose. To a destination. He was not yet at his destination, but he guessed it was still a good place to be right now. The grass was a shade of emerald green, the air peaceful, and the mid-morning sun was warming him up nicely making him want to take a nap. Bleached headstones in neat little rows fanned out and around him. It really was a wonderful place to bury the dead.

He didn't know he was going to end up here, it certainly wasn't in the plans, but the plans were blank at the moment so maybe fate was making the decisions right now and he was merely the chauffeur. It really was almost as if something had propelled him towards this place. Maybe it was his dead self, the real Peter of this universe, dead Peter, calling the shots and wanting vengrance. Angry that someone who looked just like him had come to take his place, sleep in his bed, call his parents mom and dad, and play with his toys--

He jettisoned himself out of the car, afraid he was going to be sick. His thoughts were going down roads that he never wanted to travel on. Having your entire world pulled out from under you like a bad magic trick could do things like that. Could make you think and do and say things that probably weren't sane or rational or human to you or anyone else at any other time. They could send you to places you should—or shouldn't—be, like the rollercoaster ride he was currently strapped into and couldn't escape. He guessed it could be worse, he could have found himself at his own grave. His stomach knotted up again at the thought that a grave with his name was somewhere out there.

_Well, Peter, WE have finally hit rock bottom, _he told himself, trying to laugh about it, but it wasn't working. It definitely wasn't funny to talk to your dead doppelganger as if he existed in your head like that Stephen King novel. Surely that was a one-way ticket to the Bishop family wing of St. Claire's.

The wind picked up and he heard the tuneless sound of a wind chime, saw it reflecting the sunlight from a small tree a few yards away. Her grave was probably over in that direction somewhere, but maybe it was good enough just to be this close. He didn't know what he'd do once he got over there.

_You're a coward, _deadPeter spoke to livingPeter. _Are you scared you're gonna start bawling again? Get a grip on yourself and grow up. At least you GOT to grow up. _ He shook his head, was this how it was going to be from now on? Would he now have guilt-ridden conversations with his dead self? Geez, he hoped not.

So he started a leisurely walk amongst the grave markers, trying to find her name: Elizabeth Bishop. He suspected he was more frightened that he'd get over to her grave and find that he had no more feelings for her. Maybe he was scared that he _wouldn't_ start bawling, that he'd gone all numb inside because this was a two-for-one deal: if this Walter wasn't his father, then this Elizabeth wasn't his mother. Thinking it out loud like that crushed him a little further. He could already feel his heart being pressed in a vice and the handle being turned, millimeter by millimeter. At what point wouldn't it turn any more? He had always loved his mother and hated what Walter had put her through. Even before he really, really knew what Walter put her through. She was the one who picked up the pieces of their family when Walter became a crazed lunatic day by day. She was there after Walter was sent away and it was just the two of them as they struggled to make life work again. And it was a struggle for him to leave her when he moved away, he knew she needed him. And then he got the call from Walter, stammering on about his mother and a car crash. Peter had to finally tell him to get to the point and that's when Walter said his mother was dead. And then he was all alone.

At that moment, he saw her simple headstone with the name and dates and the inscription he had forgotten was on there, the one he asked to put on there--_"Beloved Mother"_--and he fell to his knees in front of it, clearing the grass that obscured part of her name. He brushed the dirt away reverently and sat back on his heels. He was not numb inside and she was still his mother and he still loved her. His tears had come back, his nose was starting to stuff up and run, but he didn't care, he let them run down his face.

She was still his mother.

* * *

**ALBANY**

"Sir?"

Peter felt a heavy hand on his arm and gasped awake. The fluorescent lights were a shock. Some kids were running around screaming and the chair was hard as a rock, but he'd still managed to fall asleep. He looked around, his dream was fading fast and an older white-coated lady stood in front of him, waiting.

"What?" he looked around, slightly out of breath. Did he know exactly where he was?

"Your prescriptions are ready, Mr. Bishop," she told him. "We would've let you sleep a little longer, but figured you'd slept enough," she chuckled and winked at him.

"What do you mean?" he asked her suspiciously. How did she know about that?

"You said earlier you were asleep for thirty-six straight hours after your car wreck. I figured you'd be caught up on all your beauty sleep by now," she smiled and walked back to her post behind the pharmacy counter.

Peter smiled back, but only because he thought that was what he should do. "Oh. Uh, thanks."

He stood up and stretched his stiff back, those aspirin from earlier really hadn't helped at all. He walked up to the counter and she began to ring up his purchase. He picked up the bag and was pulling at the staple to open it.

"Don't mix with--" she started to say.

"--with alcohol, don't operate a moving vehicle, yeah, I know the drill," Peter finished her sentence. Little did she know he was about to pop half the bottle and drive 3,000 straight miles across the country.

He gave her his credit card. He'd made the decision earlier that day that he didn't much care if They were tracking him or not. It wasn't a crime to walk out on your job and your life and your friends.

"Hope you're feeling better soon," the pharmacist said and handed his card back to him.

"Thanks," he replied over his shoulder.

He made a beeline straight for the men's restroom. His head was pounding and he slurped up water from under the faucet and swallowed two pills. He washed his face and dried it with a towel and stared at his reflection in the mirror.

He thought maybe he looked like shit.

* * *

**ELKHART, INDIANA**

It had been a long, tiring drive so far and it wasn't even close to being over.

He fell face first onto the soft motel bed.

He buried his face in the comforter. At that moment he didn't care what Dateline undercover investigation might have found out about hotel bedspreads, because he was out for the count before he even hit the bed.

* * *

**KADOKA, NORTH DAKOTA**

Peter's eyes snapped open as he felt the front wheels of the car lose their hold on the road and saw at the last second he was headed straight for a metal signpost. He wrenched the steering wheel back and the car responded quickly, spitting up gravel and knicking the sign before settling back onto the pavement. He felt the adrenaline pumping through him and he was wide awake now. That had been a close one. But he did manage to read the sign before swerving frantically and it had said there was a campground at the next exit. How fortunate that fate was at the wheel tonight.

He pulled up to the darkened entrance to Custer's Campground. He would just drive around and slip into an open space and fall asleep.v At least that was the plan.

But the place was deserted, boarded up, weeds and nature overgrown and choking the pavement, at least from what he could see when the headlights rounded the curve from the main road. He pulled into what probably used to be a parking lot and killed the engine. He sat there looking around as his eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness and his ears adjusted to the sound...

"...of Silence," Simon and Garfunkel sang in his head and finished the thought for him.

He couldn't even barely remember where he was, he thought it was Wyoming, hoped it was Idaho, but he had a suspicion it was South Dakota. He probably should have stopped hours ago, but he was running full tilt pell mell on energy drinks and Tylenol 3, for fifteen straight hours. Not a good combination, he was finally beginning to realize. He was tired, bone tired, but his heart and brain were racing and he physically couldn't fall asleep.

He got out of the car, shut the door and started walking It was dark, really dark out here. And far far away from civilization. Normally that wouldn't bother him, but tonight, for some reason it did. He had never felt quite so alone in all his life, swinging in the wind, as he did now. He wished he had some of Walter's special sleep aid, which he was pretty sure was just Valium. That would help right about now, it would put him to sleep to think about this stuff another time. But that would mean he'd be back at the lab and back in Boston and everyone tiptoeing around him while he kept trying to figure out what was wrong, when it fact it was all him. He wished he could rewind time back to before the trip to Jacksonville, before he ever heard about cortexiphan trials and the pattern and the Observers. And even though they had shared so much together and his life was infinitely better because of her existence in it, he wished he could rewind time to before Olivia Dunham crashed into his life.

If he ever got his hands on a time machine, say Walter's time machine that he claimed to have invented, he would use it. He would take himself back to a year ago or maybe even back to Iraq and warn himself not to get involved, don't trust the girl with the freckles and long blond hair who said she needed you only for a few days and don't ever, ever sign your old man out of St. Clair's. Forked timelines and paradoxes be damned, he didn't care about the consequences, as long as if in some timeline, somewhere, he would exist without this gaping hole in his heart.

* * *

Next thing he knew, a buzzing sound was filling his brain. He felt warm and a bright light was cutting through his closed eyelids.

He opened his eyes and felt the ground beneath his cheek. He was in a patch of grass, the morning sun hovering over him. He sat up, but the buzzing didn't go away, in fact it seemed to get louder. Peter looked around, unsure exactly what was going on. He saw his rental car off in the distance and why was he not in it?

He looked up and over and found the source of the buzzing. A bee hive was in the decaying tree above him and he watched the bees zooming in and out and around, busy with their work, paying no attention to him.

Slowly, he stood up and walked backwards away from the hive and the buzzing receded. He brushed the grass bits off of him and stumbled back to the car.

* * *

**COEUR D'ALENE, IDAHO**

He pulled into a space outside his motel room around midnight, key in hand. His back protesting that he better not spend another night on the ground or another minute in the car or it was going on strike. He opened the door and saw the loveliness of the bed and hoped it was nice and comfortable. But just the simple fact that it existed and had blankets and a sheet was enough for him. He gulped down a glass of tap water and then some pills and another glass of water. He had a small bag of clothes and toiletries he had bought at a store back in New York. Sadly he realized, all the things he had right now in the world were in that small bag. He hadn't gone back to the house for any of his belongings, couldn't go back or he would have to see Walter and hear him ramble on about him being sick and dying and couldn't he understand why he did the things he did. No, he could not go back there yet. There were pictures he wanted, his laptop, some books, not much but they were important to him. The question was, could he ever go back? If it was just Walter he was going back to, then no, he had done it before and he could do it again and never look back. Despite having grown closer to him and actually feeling like a father and a son again, for maybe the first time ever.

But then there was the Olivia equation. He would and could go back for her, just for her. He shouldn't be mad at her, it was probably tearing her up inside to keep this secret from him. He could only guess that Walter made her promise not to tell him and that was the reason for all the distance between them.

But in going back to Olivia, he'd have to deal with Walter in some way. Catch-22.

His cell phone rang.

He looked at the display but all it said was 'unknown number'. Curious, he answered it.

"Hello?"

A series of squeals and static, hissing and beeps, kind of like a fax machine or an old modem, but more like an old television that was in between the channels. A phenomenon that didn't exist any more. He thought he heard voices but they were garbled.

"Is anyone there?" but the static continued and his paranoia shot through the roof.

He hung up the phone quickly. Why exactly had he answered it in the first place?

_[BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!]_

He was watching from the shadows as a hooded figure was striking something loudly with a hammer. The figure was bent over a table, an apron tied around his waist, his back to Peter.

_[BANG! BANG! BANG!]_

"Stop it!" Peter yelled. "What do you think you're doing?"

The figure turned around at his voice and it rushed towards him. Peter got low, about to drive right into his attacker, but before the hooded figure was on him, bloody hammer ready to strike---

_[BANG! BANG! BANG!]_

---the dream fizzled out.

"This is the manager, open up!" a muffled voice yelled out.

Peter sat upright with a start and turned to the door that had been shaking on its hinges seconds before.

He swiped at his face to wake himself up and staggered to the door, opening the security latch and turning the knob. The bright sun hit him square in the face and he shielded it with his hand.

"Yeah?" he croaked.

"Hey, you missed check out and you only paid for one night," Raj, the desk clerk from the night before, said to him. "You need to go or pay for another night."

"Oh, man, I'm sorry. I must have overslept. I'll be out of here in ten minutes," Peter told him.

"You better be out in five if you're not paying for another night," Raj told him and walked away.

Peter shut the door with a sigh and threw his meager belongings in his bag and pulled on his jeans. He looked all over for his cell phone and finally found it in a knotted plastic bag on the night stand. He opened the bag and saw it was all in pieces--the phone, the back, the sim card, and the battery. He saw a piece of paper inside and reached for it, pulling out a note scrawled in his own handwriting on the motel stationary--

_"Do not reassemble."_

He wondered when the hell he had written that.


	3. Chapter 3

_Hello all 4.6 readers (are there more?)! I forgot about this story, but alas no more! Here is chapter 3 that has been sitting on my hard drive for months now. I'm in St Louis on vacation and thought it would be cool to get this up and posted from another state and pretend like I'm a jet-setting author when in reality I'm just visiting family._

_Is it September? Is it September? IS IT SEPTEMBER!_

_

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._**x.x.x.x**

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**CHAPTER 3**

BROYLES' OFFICE

"Sir, do you know something?" Olivia watched her boss, she was good at reading him and knew when he was keeping something from her. Hell, he had been keeping things from her since the beginning so she should know that look better than anybody around here.

"Have you spoken to him?" She drilled into his brain with pinpoint accuracy. Broyles liked to call it 'psychic mining'. It still marveled him that she was so unaware of her gifts. But when she used them, she used them with deadly accuracy.

Broyles stared at his desk, not knowing precisely how to begin.

"I've been receiving disturbing reports of incidents that appear to be Pattern-related."

"Where? Why wasn't I informed?" Olivia asked him.

Broyles opened a folder that had been sitting on his desk. "Albany, five days ago. Indiana, four days ago. South Dakota, three days ago. And Coeur d'Alene, Idaho two nights ago." He passed her the file.

She scanned the details laid out in front of her. "All of them outside the Boston area. But what does this have to do with Peter?" she scrunched up her nose and Broyles knew she was getting impatient with him.

"I received a phone call this morning. From a Sheriff's deputy in Snowqualmie, Washington. Peter is being held there for questioning."

"Questioning for _what_?"

"For a murder that was committed there last night. He had contact with the victim. They were going to meet later that night, but she never showed up."

At Broyles' last statement, Olivia's heart hit her ribs with a thud.

"But he's not being charged, is he?"

"No, they have no evidence that he was involved and he has a solid alibi from what I've been told. But he knew information about the killing that he shouldn't have known."

"So in what way are the killings Pattern-related? Or related to Peter, for that matter?" Maybe he had a head injury or maybe the shock of events was too much for him and he had snapped. But this was her friend, her best friend. She didn't believe for one second that he was involved in these murders. Did she?

"Each of the victims had portions of their temporal lobes removed. But they were sloppy, unprofessional, not at all like Newton. I've asked Massive Dynamic to send me any information they have on Peter's whereabouts during the last five days and I've pulled his credit card and cell phone records." He passed her another file and Olivia opened it, some of the place names stood out like flashing neon signs to her-

A pharmacy in Albany.

A motel in Elkhart, Indiana.

A gas station in South Dakota.

A motel in Coeur d'Alene.

Another motel in Snowqualmie.

All correlating, more or less, with the time-frames of the murders

Olivia looked up at Broyles, shock written all over her face. She knew Peter and he couldn't do these things... could he? "Are you saying Peter had something to do with these murders?"

Broyles looked up at her with cagey, worried eyes. "What I'm saying is that I need you go to Washington and bring him back here. And I need you to do it fast. I'll have a military plane waiting for you on the ground in Seattle to fly you both back here."

_Military plane? _"Sir, you need to be straight with me and tell me what is going on. Peter is not a murderer. He may have a checkered past, but I know him, you know him. He's no murderer."

"No, he isn't, we can agree on that," he sat back in his chair with a worried look still on his face. "They were all separate incidents. One of the crimes has been solved already and a suspect apprehended. But I still need you to bring Peter Bishop back here to Boston as soon as you can." Restless, he leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk, clasping his hands together and looked Olivia in the eye. "I haven't spoken to you yet about what you may know about Peter. We may in fact know the same things. Suffice it to say, Agent Dunham, there are things about him that you _don't _know. And I need you to get him on a plane and bring him back to Boston within the next twenty-four hours. And he is not to leave your custody. Is that clear?"

She nodded at Broyles. "Yes, but I still don't understand."

"By the time you come back to Boston, I think you will." He looked down at the desk and shuffled some papers around and Olivia took that as her cue to leave.

She was reeling from this turn of events. Peter was found, but clear across the continent. With a string of suspicious murders following in his wake. It only raised more questions. What had he been doing for the last five days? Why did she need to bring him back so quickly to Boston? Why was Broyles ordering a military plane to pick them up?

But action was better than inaction and she was no good sitting around here throwing back shots of Bushmills, waiting and wallowing in her own private misery. Peter was found, he was not going anywhere, and she was going to bring him back soon and get to the bottom of it all.

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**.x.x.x.x.**

* * *

At that moment, Peter was sitting in a holding cell, gazing blankly out through the metal bars. Lately it seemed to be a popular vantage point for him. He desperately wanted to be out there, helping to catch the killer, getting to the bottom of a mystery and using the very narrow set of skills he had honed over the last year and a half. He hadn't realized until now just how much he enjoyed being a detective specializing in 'weird'. It was one of the better jobs on his resume. One of the few real jobs he could actually put on a resume. But you didn't need a resume to wash your fellow inmates' dirty laundry and pick out china patterns with your cell mate. He was getting more anxious about those possibilities with every minute that went by staring at these bars.

He had been sitting there for about an hour. Or two. Maybe more, maybe less. They hadn't charged him with anything, but they weren't letting him go even though he had an alibi. It was a stroke of sheer luck that he'd fallen asleep in the motel lobby under the curious eye of the motel clerk. His whole existence was seemingly based upon sheer luck and that was _before_ he found out about the whole mess with Walter and his kidnapping from an alternate universe. And the betrayal by the one person he had let in, the one person he thought he could trust. He rested his forehead in his hands and stopped thinking about it. But he couldn't. This feeling of betrayal was all too familiar a feeling.

He noticed a spider wrapping up an insect corpse in the corner. That's exactly what he felt like. Like he had been innocently caught in a web, wrapped up in a tight little package and was being slowly drained of his life juices.

A heavy door opened down the hall and a uniformed officer came up to his cell and started unlocking it. Peter snapped his head up.

"Phone call for you," said the deputy.

Peter stood slowly. "From who?" he asked warily.

"Your fairy godmother," the officer chuckled but didn't say any more. Peter left the cell and walked ahead of the officer. He knew it was probably Olivia calling to chew him out for leaving.

He went to the phone hanging on the wall and picked up the handset that was lying on top.

"Hello?"

Static, clicks, and beeping greeted him.

"Hello?" he asked again. He looked around for the officer, but he was suddenly gone. And Peter was suddenly angry and his heart was racing. He was so tired of this!

"Who is this?" he asked loudly, but there was no response except for the sounds and he punched the cinder block wall because he was getting tired of this. Really tired and now his hand hurt like a motherfuck.

"Not your fairy godmother?" the officer asked into his ear a little too closely and laughed-

-And Peter woke up, his heart pounding in his chest.

He had fallen asleep curled up on the bench in the holding cell. He glanced down at his watch and it told him it was almost seven at night. He heard the heavy door at the end of the hall opening and his chest filled with dread.

The sight in front of him took that feeling away in an instant.

Olivia appeared in front of his cell looking weary and anxious. She met Peter's eyes briefly as the officer opened the cell door and she stepped in.

"Thank you Officer Davis," Olivia told him, clearly dismissing him. He nodded and walked away. The heavy door swung shut at the end of the short hall and Peter and Olivia were alone together.

She stood there. He sat. The seconds ticked by and neither made a move to say anything.

Olivia had Peter cornered and there was nowhere for him to run any more.

To Olivia's eyes, Peter looked like he'd been run over by a freight train and dragged about fifty feet while being stomped by an angry mob. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. The glimmer was there, muted, but there. She wanted to reach out to him but she also wanted to scream at him to never do this again. But she kept her mouth firmly shut.

To _Peter's_ eyes, Olivia looked pale, a little unkempt, her hair falling out of its pony tail. Her red eyes also spoke of sleep deprivation and he guessed she'd been hitting the booze a little harder lately. He hadn't wanted to speak to her, yet at the same time, she was the only one he could. And his heart felt a little bit lighter having her so close. But the heaviness of her betrayal still pressed on his chest. Yin and yang nestled together inside him.

Olivia cleared her throat. "I was worried about you, Peter."


End file.
